Victoria will implement the most comprehensive real-time prescription monitoring system in Australia in an attempt to cut overdose deaths.
Photograph: Toby Talbot/AP

As the contribution of pharmaceutical drugs to overdose deaths continues to rise in Victoria each year, the state budget being handed down on Wednesday will include $29.5m to implement the most comprehensive real-time prescription monitoring system in Australia.

While Tasmania already has a prescription monitoring system, only controlled substances, known as Schedule 8 substances, are monitored, which includes the analgesic drug similar to morphine, OxyContin, and the benzodiazepine, Xanax.

However, experts are concerned the Tasmanian system excludes prescription-only drugs, known as Schedule 4 substances, which means benzodiazapines such as Valium and diazepam and opiates such as doloxene are not monitored, despite their demonstrated roles in up to half of prescription overdose deaths.

Hennessy said Victoria’s system will include Schedule 8 medicines such as morphine and oxycodone at a minimum, and that the government would consult with professional medical and pharmacy groups to determine which Schedule 4, high-risk medicines should be included.

“We will be the first state implementing a real-time monitoring system of this scale,” she said. Guardian Australia understands options being considered by the state government including approaching the commonwealth to have the most problematic Schedule 4 drugs reclassified as Schedule 8.

The system will allow clinicians at 1,900 GP clinics, 1,300 pharmacies and 200 hospitals to do an on-the-spot check before prescribing or dispensing medicines that are at high risk of misuse. Hennessy said an estimated 90 lives would be saved over the next five years, while the number of people taken to emergency departments for overdoses is expected to be reduced by 500 people per year.

Those identified by the system as problem users would be referred to counselling, Hennessy said.

The chief executive of the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association, Sam Biondo, said it was encouraging that Schedule 4 substances would be encompassed by the monitoring system, given their significant contribution to deaths.

“But what also needs to happen is the additional allocation of funding towards the drug treatment sector, because there will be flow-on work for those services as people are referred for help,” he said.

“There also needs to be educational activities to prepare the community for these changes.”

The president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, Dr Alex Wodak, supported the system, but said it would not solve or drastically reduce the number of prescription overdose deaths. There was also a risk people unable to obtain prescriptions would simply turn to illicit forms of the drugs, he said.

“Very often, supply restrictions like this tend to be disappointing in reality, both in terms of the benefits being less than we hoped, and unintended negative consequences being greater than expected,” he said.

“That’s my view of what’s likely to happen, and while I support it, I think it’s going to achieve less than people hoped.”

While the effects of Tasmania’s real-time prescription monitoring system were still being evaluated, Wodak said preliminary results seemed to indicate the overall overdose deaths did not lower significantly, but deaths shifted from prescription to illicit drugs.

“We’re already seeing a shift from prescription opiates to heroin at the medically supervised injection centre in Sydney as abuse-deterrent formulations from the drug companies increased in 2014,” he said.

He agreed with Biondo that there must be a significantly greater investment in opioid treatment programs, which he described as prohibitively expensive for most drug users.

He also said short-acting benzodiazapines had “no role outside of the hospital” and should not be prescribed outside of a hospital.